Dead Quadrigacx founder’s laptop unlocked – but the wallets are empty

Christian Ploog

The case of the Canadian crypto exchange Quadrigacx takes an unexpected turn.

At the beginning of February, it was revealed that the Canadian crypto exchange Quadrigacx allegedly lost nearly $190 million in cryptocurrencies when their founder and CEO Gerald Cotten died in Crohn’s disease in India late last year. At the beginning of 2019, the exchange issued a notice regarding the situation.

Reportedly, the money was stored offline on the exchange’s so-called “cold storage”, and according to Jennifer Robertson, widow of Gerald Cotten, only the now deceased founder had access to the keys to the wallet. The exchange, therefore, feared that the assets were lost forever.

Laptop unlocked

Now, the consulting firm Ernst & Young, with the help of an IT security company, has been able to unlock Cotten’s encrypted laptop where he kept the private encryption keys. When investigators unlocked the cold storage wallets, however, it turned out that they were empty, BBC reports.

The cold storage wallets allegedly were emptied several months before Cotten died. Exactly where the money has gone is still unclear. However, Ernst & Young writes in a report that they found evidence that Cotten had 14 other user accounts on Quadrigacx “created outside the normal process”. They are now continuing to investigate the trading activities on these accounts, according to BBC.